


Game Night at Beacon Academy: 3rd Edition

by Kiiratam



Series: Game Nights at Beacon Academy & Beyond [9]
Category: Dungeons & Dragons (Roleplaying Game), RWBY
Genre: Blake is triggered, Canon Compliant, Comfort, F/F, Fluff, RWBY plays D&D, Ruby isn't always oblivious, Weiss suffers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-16
Updated: 2019-09-16
Packaged: 2020-10-20 03:43:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,990
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20668754
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kiiratam/pseuds/Kiiratam
Summary: After a lengthy hiatus, Ruby gets the gang back together for another night of Fortresses & Froghemoths.Takes place between Volumes 2 and 3. (My BMBLB fic index)





	Game Night at Beacon Academy: 3rd Edition

It was a dark and stormy late afternoon. A dark day for dark business. Ruby glanced around the coffee table in the 3rd floor common room, everyone - _finally_ \- assembled once again. In her own defense, she had figured out how to solve the problem of her players joining the unholy army of the diabolist mage Aria Nox within two weeks.

  
But Jaune had thought it was going to take her longer, so he'd spent most of his free time fabricating a papercraft **Tabarzin 20,000** table and armies, and Pyrrha wasn't available anyway, so they'd pushed it back a week. And then Weiss and Blake had been busy the next week, getting study guides ready. And the week after that, they'd been recovering from five tests, and no one really wanted to leave bed, or think. And and and. It had been a while.

  
The important thing was that everyone was here now. Even if Yang was in one of her moods, due to the rain. Not a 'grr, Yang smash' mood. One of the weird ones. It was Yang's mood had that had them all wearing swimsuits. She'd instituted Beach Rule, and everyone else had more or less gone along with it. After most of a week of torrential rain, there was a practical aspect to it too. Swimsuits were the only clothes that dried fast. Ruby shuffled her notes, perched on the edge of her chair, and got her Fortress Master face on. "Alright, everyone! Sound off! Widdershins!"

  
"Widder-whats?" Jaune looked at her from across the table. He was sitting on the floor, elbows propped on the edge of the table. Still shirtless. Ruby wondered if he was getting cold in his swim trunks.

  
"Left, Jaune." Blake said, from her cozy perch. She'd finally given up on wearing a tee shirt over her bikini.

  
"Sis," her perch spoke up, "Why do you use all these weird directions in practice? You never actually use them in the field." Yang shifted a bit, still holding onto Blake.

  
"Well, that's why I'm _training_. Blake, go ahead."

  
"I'm Orlando FitzHalberd, dashing ex-inquisitor, current lyrical thaumaturge, easily swayed by a pretty face and a sob story."

  
"And a charm spell." Pyrrha added, smiling.

  
Blake frowned. "Was that really necessary? I wanted to help Aria already. You didn't need to use mind control magics."

  
"You don't exactly have the moral high ground here." Weiss looked across the table. "Don't you have your husband mind controlled?"

  
"Well, yes, but-"

  
Adjusting her bikini a bit, Yang said, "Hey, lay off my husband. Just because Aria didn't mind control you, doesn't mean that you're better than us. You changed sides of your own free will."

  
Ruby darted glances back and forth between her players. Already, the strife was setting in. The inevitable result of evil parties! Soon, the inter-party fights would start! She couldn't wait.

  
Blake poked Yang in the chest. "Don't start fights." Aww. "Introduce yourself, beloved husband."

  
"Oh, right. Um, Furian, anti-inquisitor."

  
Weiss pulled a face. "_Furian_? Did you get a name change when you went evil?"

  
"Oh, sorry, old character. Got marooned a lot. I think he's still marooned, actually. Furioso FitzHalberd. Orlando's devoted husband, recently thrown off the doctrine of the Iron Inquisition and dove into the deep end of Anti-Inquisitorhood."

  
"And what does that mean?" Weiss was flipping through her copy of the rulebook.

  
"No more stupid rules about maintaining purity, so we can all have sex with Orlando at the same time."

  
Jaune nodded. "Right, the _important_ part about joining the Forces of Chaos." Blake nodded along, with a weird smile on her face.

  
"Most of the rest of my abilities just reversed. So smiting mages becomes smiting inquisitors, I can intensify magic instead of dispelling it, that sort of thing. And I lose my investigation bonuses and get deception bonuses instead."

  
"And the anti-inquisitor has **awesome** art." Jaune added.

  
Yang shrugged. "Too many spikes for me."

  
"Too... many?"

  
Ruby snapped her fingers. "Focus, Jaune. Who are you?"

  
"...Jaune? Oh, right. I'm Ruby's Fortress Minion. I run the mooks, boobs, and assorted nitwits."

  
Already scanning the index of her rulebook, Weiss asked. "Is nitwit a formal classification, or..."

  
"Oh, no. Just my sisters' name for _especially_ dumb minions. " Jaune thought for a minute. "But there are nobhoblin nitwits, who make everyone around them dumber-"

  
He cut off when Pyrrha reached down and laid a hand on his shoulder.

  
"And I'm..." Pyrrha turned to Ruby. "Do I get an actual title, or am I just another one of your Minions?"

  
"Uhhhh..." Ruby started flipping through her book. Yang and her had played against each other, and hadn't exactly cared much about roleplaying. She wasn't even used to having an actual minion, much less two. Where was that section on the fortress master's minions? She had _just_ seen it!

  
Weiss chimed in. "Page 572, Ruby."

  
"Thanks, Weiss." She scanned the page. Making effective use of your minions, making sure they don't become demoralized, resisting minion and player revolts, training for promotion to fortress master, ah, minions playing non-player characters. "Looks like you're just another Minion."

  
Pyrrha shrugged, leaned back in her chair. Unnecessarily adjusted the broad straps of her one-piece swimsuit.

  
"But we can come up with a title for you, if you want!" That was an important part of keeping Minions docile: important sounding titles. A sudden idea occurred to Ruby. "What do you think about... Player Character? Jaune can help you build a character, while everyone else cleans out a few nuisances in the fortress for Aria."

  
"Ah, in-fighting." Yang smiled. "Feuds within Fortresses are great."

  
"And they're the only reason civilization can exist." Blake added, like some kind of weird roleplayer who'd actually read the setting material. Or a book addict who'd been in the same room as the rulebook for long enough. Either way. "If the Fortresses were unified, they'd be impossible to defeat. Which is probably why Aria wants control of this one _before_ declaring war on civilization."

  
"Can I play Aria?"

  
Ruby didn't want to say no, but it was going to be really hard for Aria to have plots and schemes and villainous plans, and, most importantly, send people on quests, if Pyrrha was playing her. "Ummm..."

  
Like a good Minion, Jaune came to her rescue. "What about a Snow Clone of Aria? It would be less powerful than her, but have most of the same abilities. And there's that incantation to see through your Snow Clone's eyes. It'd be useful to keep on eye on her newest converts." He started flipping through his battered copy of the rulebook.

  
"Good plan, Jaune. Pyrrha?"

  
"That sounds fun. Yang, what's the app you use for dice-rolling?" Pyrrha pulled out her scroll, and Ruby thanked her inwardly. She wasn't going to have actual metal dice, and wouldn't be able to use her Semblance to rig the results. Sure, Pyrrha could still affect Ruby's dice, or other people's, but Ruby trusted Pyrrha to not cheat. And Ruby had her own copy of Yang's app, anyway.

  
"It's 'Never Say Die.'"

  
"Okay, Jaune, Pyrrha - start working." Ruby passed a piece of paper across the table. "Aria's stats, you have the Snow Clone rules, ask me if you have questions."

  
Weiss handed Pyrrha a blank character sheet. "Here, I have some spares. I was led to believe that Fortresses & Froghemoths was a very lethal game, so I brought extras."

  
"Well, it's not like I haven't been _trying_ to make you bleed out on the flagstones!" Ruby shuffled her papers. "You're all just lucky! And competent!"

  
"And well laid." Blake cut in. "Because of Orlando's-"

  
"Yeah, yeah, Orlando's a sex god, who gives his lovers with the strength to literally pierce the heavens." Ruby shook her head. "I mean, not _literally_ literally. But it's what, a +8 to hit and damage?"

  
"+6." Blake held up her character sheet and pointed.

  
"+6. Most characters never see a +6 bonus in their sad, miserable lives, and there you go, handing them out like candy at 1st level."

  
Yang had a broad grin on her face, and she reached up and mussed Blake's hair. "I love my husband so much. And it's not like we haven't nearly died a whole bunch, Ruby. I mean, if it was just us playing, switching sides meant handing in your character sheet. And probably fighting your old character the next time. Why didn't you just do that?"

  
"Well, I mean, Wess just got her Whitley figure, and I'm trying not to go super hard on new players, and-"

  
"Admit it, sis, you're getting soft in your old age."

  
Oh, she'd show Yang. She'd show her. "Weisssssss?" Ruby slowly turned her head to stare at her last player.

  
"Here, and also _incredibly_ creeped out. What _was_ that voice?"

  
Yang said, "That's her Sneeple voice."

  
After glancing at her index, Weiss asked, "I am certainly going to regret this, but what is a 'Sneeple'?"

  
"Kind of like a bunny rabbit, but with wings." Jaune didn't even look up when he answered.

  
Yang screwed up her face at him. "What kind of games have you been playing? That's a Smeep. Sneeple are snake people."

  
Sighing, Weiss leaned against her hand. "Of course they are."

  
"They form the backbone of organized crime in the world." Blake shifted a bit on Yang's lap, stretching out her legs, and reclining against the arm of the couch. "Between them and the Rat Clan, the wrong part of town is nearly as dangerous as a Fortress."

  
"Thrilling. Well, strange, hissing Ruby, and everyone else, I'm playing Whitley, Aeldauphin. And I _still_ only have seven hit points." She drummed her fingers on her little custom-made side table. Somehow, Weiss had managed to resist Yang's beachwear-based mood. In her white sundress (with cute little red roses embroidered on it), she looked positively over-dressed. "Can we go have a fight with something large and full of hit points? I still have that vampire sword strike."

  
Ruby rolled her dice, looked at her monster table. Another Froghemoth? She glanced over the top of her Fortress Master screen, making sure Pyrrha wasn't meddling. She and Jaune had their heads together, deep in the character creation process.

Another Froghemoth would be silly. How many giant mutant amphibian alpha predators lived in this fortress, anyway? Besides, it would _definitely_ kill them. Ruby moved up an entry in the chart. Gosheckingdarn goliath spider. That would work. A nice chunky mid-boss enemy like that would give Pyrrha plenty of time. And what were the odds of them hitting its weak point?

  
There was a rolling boom of thunder that rattled their metal dice. Ruby thought she heard Nora's laughter on the roof.

* * *

Weiss frowned at her. "Ruby Rose, are you going easy on us?"

  
"Relax, Weiss." Yang waved her hand. "Just accept your good luck while it lasts."

  
"One hit kill! That's not good luck, that's ridiculous!"

  
"You _are_ back at full hit points." Blake pointed out, while toying with the ties of her bikini.

  
"While Whitley is going on about how unfair it was that he won so easily, I'm going to start chopping the spider up into manageable parts." Yang hefted an imaginary axe. "Aria can't fit the whole thing in the cookpot at once."

  
Blake gave her a weird look. "Cookpot?"

  
"Why do you think our lord and master wants a big, dumb animal dead? We had to hunt it down, so it wasn't guarding anything. It's an animal, so it's not leading one of the opposing factions."

  
Blake turned to Ruby. "Is Aria just using us as _caterers_?"

  
"Uhhh..." You couldn't just tell a roleplayer that you'd used a random monster generator; they needed a story. Well, Yang had given her one, may as well use it. "You'll have to ask her when you get back. But, yeah, Furioso does make good points."

  
"I didn't escape the Iron Inquisition to start working a low-paying food service job. We're going to have to talk to Aria."

  
Jaune flashed Ruby a thumbs-up from across the table. Ruby nodded. "Okay, you make it back to Aria, but now there are two of her."

  
"Hello again!" Pyrrha waved at the rest of the table. Maybe forgetting that she was playing a demon-summoning enemy of civilization. Or maybe she was just a really weird snow clone.

  
Blake threw an arm around Yang's neck. "Hold me, Furioso. There are two of our lord and master, and I can't bear it."

  
Shrugging, Yang wrapped her arms around Blake's waist.

  
Weiss rolled her eyes and sat back in her chair. "The spider's dead."

  
Taking a second, Ruby put on her best Pyrrha impression. Sort of. Pyrrha as Aria impression. "Thank you, brave warriors. Now we can throw a feast and convert the last hold-outs to our side."

  
"Called it!" Yang grinned, squeezed Blake.

  
"My snow-clone will assist you in some final preparations, and then - we will unify this Fortress, then all the Fortresses, and crush the forces of Law and Order beneath our feet!" Ruby started laughing maniacally, and Pyrrha joined in after a second. In the kitchenette, Ren looked up from the stack of pancakes he was making. Shook his head, and went back to his griddle.

  
"Do we really have to unify _all_ the Fortresses first?" Weiss asked. "Wouldn't it be better to unify some of them, then take on the surrounding towns and cities, and expand like that? Unless there's some kind of transport between Fortresses that I don't know about."

  
Jaune spread his hands, "Well, the bottom floor of each Fortress does have-"

  
Ruby and Yang turned to him. "Jaune!"

  
"Ooohhh, right, new players. Sorry, sorry....sorry." He mimed zipping his mouth shut. Mouthed 'sorry' again.

  
Looking back and forth between them, Weis said, "So there _is_ a way to move between Fortresses without crossing the civilized space in-between."

  
Ruby glared at Jaune. Kept talking in her Pyrrha-Aria voice. "I will forgive your ignorance, Whitley. But take care not ask too many questions. You may not like the answers you receive."

  
Weiss opened her mouth with a fierce look on her face. Stopped, and slowly closed her mouth.

  
Seeing Weiss' struggle, Blake jumped in. "What may we call your snow-clone, Lord Aria?"

  
Ruby looked at Pyrrha.

  
"My name is Aaria." She did a weird, almost hiccup between the first two 'a's.

  
"That's a weird name. Like, 'Aria' is kind of weird, but this is extra weird." Yang cocked her head.

  
"Jaune said it was a 'thing' with clone names."

  
Everyone looked at Jaune. He looked back, turning his head to meet everyone's looks. "I _can't_ have been the only one to read the Clone Struggles Saga comics. They were huge! I thought everyone read them!"

  
Blake shook her head. Weiss and Pyrrha just looked mystified. Ruby said, "I couldn't take the way they drew weapons."

  
Yang added, "I thought about reading them, but all my Signal friends wouldn't shut up about them, so I didn't read them out of spite."

  
"Well, it was the way they distinguished clones in that. So if we were cloned, it would be-" He pointed around the table. "Pyyrrha, Weiiss, Ruuby, Yaang, Blaake, and Jaauune."

  
"I still say it's weird. But okay. She's a clone, she can be weird." Yang nodded at Pyrrha. "So what can you do, ice queen?"

  
Weiss bristled automatically, then settled back into her chair when Pyrrha answered. "Depends on what kind of demon I'm binding. Right now, I've got a foocubus and a heckhound, so charms and fire."

  
"Wait, so you don't summon demons?" Blake sat up a bit. "I thought that was what diabolists did." She turned to Yang, who shrugged.

  
"Yes, but that's not... subtle. So Aaria doesn't do it as much. And they're hard to control. Aria is much better at it, of course."

  
"Hey Ruby?" Weiss nodded at Pyrrha. "With my Aeldauphin Sight, is Aaria _also_ charmed?"

  
"Yup."

  
"Great. She doesn't trust her own clones." Weiss shook her head. "How miserable."

  
Pyrrha smiled, very very widely. "But I like it!"

  
Blake put on a face-splitting grin. "Lord Aria is so kind and beautiful."

  
"Yeah, she's pretty alright for a mage." Yang gave had her Mom scowl on, where she Couldn't Officially Approve, but Really Secretly Approved.

  
"Dolts."

* * *

Yang tapped her scroll, rolling her attack. "I missed having an explodomancer in the party. Thanks for the barbecue, Pyrrha. Ruby, that's a 32 to hit-"

  
"Yeah, yeah, it's dead."

  
Jaune looked down at the board, and the no-longer-surrounded party. "It _was_ a nice ambush, Ruby. We did get some hits on them."

  
"And Aaria got herself a nobhoblin minion. I think they're stronger now than when they went _into_ the fight."

  
Smirking, Weiss said, "Face it, Ruby. We're too good for you."

  
"Weiss, could you maybe _not_ taunt the Fortress Master?" Yang gestured with her scroll. "I'm the one who has to protect you, and anti-inquisitors don't get nearly as much healing. And the only thing really restricting Ruby is her trying to play fair."

  
"Oh, it's too late for that, Yang." Ruby looked around the table, hiding her smile behind her FM screen. "Because the nobhoblins were just bait! Double ambush!" She placed a bunch of counters down on the board, re-surrounding the party.

  
Pyrrha peered at them. "Are those negative images of Whitley?"

  
"Very close!" Ruby said with a cackle.

  
Yang hugged Blake close. "Nice knowing you, Orlando."

  
"What? Why? What are those?" She turned from Yang's hug to take a closer look at the counters. "Oh. That's not good."

  
"Ruby, go ahead. Get your murder on."

  
"As Furioso bisects the last nobhoblin, the lights flicker and fade into a ghoulish half-light. From the shadows all around you they come. Tall, elegant, with sharp pointy knives and sharp pointy grins! The Feldauphin attack!"

  
Jaune started rolling attacks from wickedly sharp knives and horrific poisons. By the end of the ambush, all four of the players had taken multiple hits, and were starting to feel the effects of at least one potentially debilitating poison.

  
Revising her hit points for the seventh time, Yang sighed. "I hate Feldauphin." Her remark was punctuated by a flash of lightning outside.

* * *

Pyrrha looked at the rest of her team. "Come on, everyone. We're not dead yet!"

  
Slumped in her chair, Weiss was staring up at the ceiling. "I _just_ got all those hit points _back_."

  
"And now they're gone again. Welcome to my life, Weiss." Yang scanned her character sheet. "I'm going to vomit pink goop on that Feldauphin Bolter. I'd like her to stop shooting me, my party, and everyone I've ever known. And I can't close with her, so ranged combat it is."

  
"Uhhhhh." Ruby opened her rulebook to the anti-inquisitor. "I don't remember any pink goop..."

  
"The _Amulet of O'Pept_?"

  
"That Orlando is wearing, because it saved him from the acid breath of the Feldauphin's pet drake?"

  
Blake nodded. "I am wearing it, but I transferred the vomit power to Orlando, because ew."

  
"Right, right, right." Ruby rolled, sighed. "Aaand she's blind. Until she can get to a sink. Aaria, you're up."

  
"Well, I haven't been able to charm any of them."

  
"Aeldauphin _are_ 90% immune to that." Weiss volunteered. "If the Feldauphin are related, they're probably also nearly immune."

  
"And they're annoyingly fire resistant."

  
Yang chimed in: "It's the cloaks. Hide in shadows, deflect fire. Good stuff."

  
"Thanks, Weiss, Yang." Pyrrha continued. "So my options are limited."

  
"At this point, I'd take a demon." Blake looked at Pyrrha hopefully.

  
Yang shook her head. "What's the first rule of summoning?"

  
"Never summon anything bigger than your head." Ruby and Yang just stared at Jaune. "What?"

  
"The first rule of summoning is 'Never summon anything you can't put down.'" Yang held up her character sheet for the table to see, pointed at her hit points. "My six hit points and I can't put anything down right now. Except our weapons, which we should really strongly consider. Feldauphin slave camps are the worst, but they're still better than death. Mostly. And how do you use combat summons if you can't summon anything bigger than your head?"

  
Jaune shrugged. "There were eight of us. We didn't use combat summons."

  
"Yeah, okay." Yang turned back to Pyrrha. "I want to go on record saying that I think it's a bad idea."

  
"Why start having good ideas now?" Weiss was toying with one of her dice. "I should have taken all of you to the cursebreakers and gotten those charms lifted."

  
"Aaria wouldn't go along with that." Pyrrha looked over her character sheet again. Set her face. "I'm going to unbind the heckhound, and let it loose. We need to regroup, and punch our way out of this ambush. The Feldauphin should focus on the demon."

  
Yang shook her head. "Okay. I don't like it, but okay."

  
Jaune placed the heckhound on the board, next to Aaria. "Pyrrha, roll for control."

  
Pyrrha tapped her scroll. "23."

  
"It's under your control. For now." Ruby couldn't wait for _that_ to go wrong.

  
Pyrrha had her heckhound and her barely-alive charmed nobhoblin charge the thickest concentration of Feldauphin. Aaria started falling back the way they'd come, putting up a wall of fire to deter pursuit.

  
"Blake?" Ruby called to her, bringing her attention out of the rulebook.

  
"Can I cast a spell on the heckhound as it goes past me?"

  
"It's still under Aaria's control, so sure."

  
"Okay. I want to use _guise of the mirrorshard panther_ on it." She rolled, perking up as she looked at the result. "So it's now surrounded by five illusions that look just like it, and they're all moving, so no one can tell which one is which. And, because of the magic, the next five hits on the heckhound hit an image instead, until they're all gone."

  
"Well done!" Pyrrha beamed at her.

  
Weiss asked, "Did you pick that spell because it's basically your Semblance?"

  
Blake nodded. "It's pretty close. There's actually a shadow clone spell that's closer, but that's a Forest Ghost only-spell. This one is just weaving music into visible light."

  
"Hope it helps." Yang squeezed Blake tightly. "And that Aaria keeps control."

  
"I'm going to fall back, over by Aaria." Blake moved her figure.

  
Weiss leaned forward and studied the map. Moved Whitley over by Aaria and Orlando. "I'm putting an ice wall from here to here." She pointed. It would cut off the bulk of the Feldauphin ambush, and trap them with the heckhound and its illusory pack mates.

  
"You can't do that, Weiss." Blake sat up, breaking free of Yang's grip. "Furioso is on the other side."

  
"I need anchor points, and I have to make a straight wall. _And_ I can't go through any occupied space. If I want to include Furioso, I have to include most of the Feldauphin, and that defeats the whole point. Furioso is just another charmed servitor of yours. We can get you another."

  
Jaune made a face at Weiss. "You're taking this 'evil' thing more seriously than everyone else, Weiss."

  
"I'm just trying to be practical. Look, Furioso can always surrender, like he said he was going to, and we can rescue him later." Even Ruby heard the unspoken 'or not' at the end of that.

  
Yang shrugged. "Good point."

  
"No, it's not!" Blake shrank back against Yang. "We can't just leave him behind! He's my husband!"

  
Pyrrha looked at the battlefield. "I don't like it either, but I don't see another option."

  
Ruby looked around the table. Jaune had grabbed a few pieces of white paper, and was busy with scissors and tape, making an impromptu ice wall. Pyrrha and Yang didn't look happy with it. Weiss' face was just blank. And Blake - maybe Blake was getting a little too in-character. She looked about ready to start crying. Ruby noticed that she was patting Yang's leg quickly, like she was tapping out of a grapple.

  
Yang sat up, shifting Blake over in her lap, so she had a clear view of the battlefield. "Hey Ruby, doesn't that ice wall run over Aaria's fire wall?"

  
"Oh, yeah. It'll melt through there. Heckfire's pretty hot. The Feldauphin will be able to get through, but it'll slow them way down, and it'll still hurt them. Even with their fire-resistant cloaks."

  
"Furioso can escape through there, then. I just have to survive until my turn." Yang grinned, leaned back, and held Blake closely. "Whitley, if I fall over, _you_ have to come save me."

  
"Ugh. Fine. Can I cast my ice wall now?"

  
Jaune held up his newly constructed ice wall, and placed it on the table with a big grin.

  
"Thanks, minion." Ruby glanced over at Blake and her sister. They'd been sharing a seat the whole game, which was kind of weird - they were on the couch, and it wasn't like Blake didn't have space to sit by herself. But at the moment, they were practically fused together. Blake had turned around to hug Yang back, burying her head in Yang's shoulder. That _really_ didn't look like the casual gal-pal snuggling they'd been doing earlier. It looked more like Yang was comforting Blake. Like Blake was recovering from a nightmare. A thought occurred to Ruby, and she acted. "All right, Jaune. Put down the craft supplies and pick up the dice! We've got attacks to roll. Just don't roll like you did with the Froghemoth. I mean, eight misses? What're the odds?" She directed the last bit at Pyrrha.

  
"Against Aaria's heckhound..." Jaune rolled. "Eleven hits, thirteen misses."

  
Pyrrha nodded. "So Orlando's spell absorbs the first five. So six hits."

  
"Yup." Jaune rolled damage. "The heckhound is at about half health. Immune to poison, so that helps. And now it's angry."

  
Ruby shook her head. "Jaune, it's a demon. It's **always** angry. What about the attacks on Furioso?"

  
Jaune shook his handful of metal dice loudly. "Twelve attacks..." He rolled them. Ruby watched Pyrrha intently, willing her to have picked up on her unspoken request. "Oh, come on!" Jaune gestured down at the dice. "Every time!" He shook his head. "Maybe you should roll some of these attacks, Ruby. I have the worst luck. No hits. Nothing above a 6, even."

  
"Maybe next time, minion. Yang, that Bolter has pulled out a flask and is washing the pink goop off her face. And the Feldauphin on the far side of the ice wall..." Ruby rolled for morale. "They can see the odds against them, and are fading back into the shadows. Yang, you're up."

  
"Is that decapitated Feldauphin still at my feet, Ruby?" She wasn't even looking at the board.

  
"Yeah, right where the mini is."

  
"Great! I pick it up, and use it and its cloak as a shield as I jump through the heckfire wall."

  
Ruby rolled damage. "Well, it would be twenty damage, but with the cloak... five damage. And you're still holding a smoking, headless corpse."

  
"A headless smoking corpse with a _magical cloak_! I take the cloak, and whatever pouches it has. Loot and scoot, everyone. I only have one hit point."

  
Blake hugged Yang, and whispered something in her ear. Broke the hug and went back to how she'd been sitting. Looking much better than she had.

  
"Pyrrha, roll for control."

  
"I got a 1."

  
"That's what happens with demon summoning." Yang shook her head. "Loot and scoot, people, loot and scoot."

* * *

"So I guess that was a failure." Weiss sighed. "I know what happens to people who fail villains. Do we want to go back?"

  
"Aria's not like that. Anyone can lose." Pyrrha smiled. "Besides, it wasn't a failure at all! Aria just needed to see a high-ranking Feldauphin through my eyes so she could issue her a telepathic invitation to the feast. And we did that."

  
"What." Weiss glared at her. "Why didn't you _tell us that?_"

  
"Feldauphin respect strength. If we hadn't actually fought them, they wouldn't respect us." Blake said. Ruby wondered where she'd picked that up. Maybe she'd borrowed a **TABARZIN 20,000** army book from Jaune?

  
"We still lost."

  
Yang chipped in. "That felt a whole lot like a draw, honestly. They ambushed us after softening us up, and we escaped the ambush without any deaths, killed a good quarter of them, and trapped them in close combat with a demon. Sure, they held the field, but we still got some of the loot and the experience. They only got corpses."

  
"But we ran away!" Weiss clearly wasn't happy about that.

  
"With style. After achieving our objective, apparently." Yang shrugged. "Killing everyone isn't the only way to win."

  
"Wait." Blake sat up. "Does this mean that we'll see them at the feast?"

  
Pyrrha nodded. "Probably."

  
"Can we keep murdering them there?"

  
"Wow, Orlando. Bloodthirsty much?" Yang laughed.

  
After thinking for a moment, Pyrha said, "So long as we don't disrupt Aria's plans, I don't see why not. So we'll have to be sneaky."

  
Ruby groaned, realizing what she'd inadvertently set up. Orlando was a bard. At a party. It was the native environment of bards. And now Orlando had a grudge, on top of his killing words, humiliating insults, blistering remarks, and sword-happy reinforcements. It was going to be a slaughter.

  
Yang held up a hand. "Hey, hold up everyone. Listen."

  
Ruby cocked her head. She didn't hear anything. She shrugged at her sister, made a 'what?' motion with her hands.

  
"It's stopped raining." Yang stood up, holding Blake in her arms. "I'm going to go check outside. Blake, you want to come?"

  
"Yeah. Just put me down. I _do_ have legs, you know."

  
"Right." Setting her down, Yang headed for the hallway. "I just want to see the sun again."

"Oh, oh! Once you've seen the sun, come back to level up!" Ruby waved excitedly at them, then turned back to the table. "So Jaune, tell me about your sisters' social combat rules..."

**Author's Note:**

> Some useful tools for you gamers out there, who want games to be, you know, fun, and not trigger-y. Ruby may have some reading to do.
> 
> First, a general overview: [Why Safety Tools Are Important To Me](https://gnomestew.com/why-safety-tools-are-important-to-me/), and some discussion on the subject: [Safety as Risk Management](https://gnomestew.com/safety-as-risk-management/).
> 
> And the tools themselves:  
[Lines & Veils](https://adventurerules.blog/2018/01/15/the-value-of-lines-and-veils/)  
[The X Card](http://tinyurl.com/x-card-rpg)  
[Script Change](https://briebeau.itch.io/script-change)  
[The Luxton Technique](https://web.archive.org/web/20181026130034/https://plus.google.com/+BenLehman/posts/DTaEThFLZAR) (The author is now going by P. H. Lee. Gender-neutral pronouns.)  
And most recently, and apparently in my mind when I wrote this: [Consent in Gaming](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288535/Consent-in-Gaming?manufacturers_id=4952).


End file.
